“It seems really unfair,” said commuter Leslie Arnott. “I think you are being targeted if you look a certain way.”

The incident allegedly started with a call to MBTA police about a group of rowdy kids on the train who were all black, who were in turn asked to leave. When police came back and ordered another black teen to also get off the train, incorrectly assuming he was part of the group, a witness intervened on his behalf and then took to Facebook to write about it in a post that’s since gone viral.

“Just being kids on the train — that’s all that happened,” Regan said. “They were being kids on the train. And they faced an action that perhaps a group of young white men probably wouldn’t have faced.”

MBTA police declined an interview to necn but during a meeting with Regan’s board on Monday afternoon they touched on their ongoing efforts to improve their relationship with minority members of the community.